Reapers of Death
by LunarLunatic
Summary: Commander Shepard, in the midst of his journey to take down the Reapers that have invaded Earth, bumped into a distress signal on the promising planet of Tau Volantis. Along with his trusted companions Garrus and Tali, Shepard embarks on a perilous and terrifying mission on the planet riddled with the undead, aided by two hardened survivors.
1. Chapter 1

For Moodybread. Thank you for sticking through with me for such a long time. I was never able to truly repay everything you've done for me, and I'm truly sorry about that. I always thought that telling you I love you every now and then and remaining faithfully diligent was enough, but lately in our time of separation I realized that it isn't. This story has been long in the works and I dedicate it to you. I hope it does justice to the Commander and his squad.

Hello and thank you for taking an interest in this fanfiction! I'd just like to say that this is the first fanfiction I've ever had the diligence to actually attempt to complete to the fullest so please bare with me if it seems rather drab at certain points. I know it isn't much and I am open to constructive criticism. Without further ado, enjoy.

~xxxxx~

"… Tau Volantis?" Shepard said bemused.

"That's right Commander," said Traynor. "The distress signal is coming from over here." She pressed a few keys on her designated terminal and the holographic replica of Tau Volantis that was hovering over the gridded glass of the galaxy map enlarged for Commander Shepard to see. "I pinpointed the exact location of the distress signal right over…" a small green dot started to blink steadily on the surface of the hologram. "Here."

"What does the signal say?" Shepard asked.

"Nothing," said Traynor. "It's coming from a broadcasting tower installed a few centuries back. Back then interstellar distress signals were nothing more than electronic flares, just shout-outs saying 'hey I'm over here!'" Traynor said jokingly. "The signal is quite fresh though, popped up at our radar just a few minutes ago."

"Uh-huh," Shepard said, crossing his arms. "And how do we know this isn't a trap? Could be just space pirates after our supplies."

"We've been through sticky situations like that Shepard, and as far as I can remember _no one_ ever got the jump on us," a grizzly, familiar voice came from behind, it was Garrus. "Let's go for it, we'll just regret ourselves if it turns out to be an innocent soul after all."

"Wait!" yet another familiar voice said, this time it was chirpy and feminine. It was Tali. She was holding a datapad as she briskly walked towards the group from the vid comm room. "Tau Volantis is invaluable to a Quarian engineer."

Traynor gestured to Shepard that she return to her regular duties. Shepard nodded, and approached Tali with Garrus to hear better what the Quarian had to say.

Tali's helmet reflected the faint glow of the datapad that she held. Her amethyst eyes glimmered as she recited the words on the screen of the device. "Tau Volantis is a small ball of ice, not much larger than earth. No sentient life is recorded to be colonized on the planet as of the moment, but it is assumed a colony of Protheans lived here long ago, before an ice age sprang up almost overnight and wiped them out. Despite its freezing temperatures it is still possible to walk the planet with the appropriate attire."

"The ones responsible for the documentation of the planet are humans, and they come from a technological age that was quite short." Tali added after she finished reading what was on the datapad. "As you can see Shepard, not only will there be Prothean technology there worth taking, there will also be ancient human technology that was never brought back home; there could be something new there, Shepard, something that will surely give us Quarians and Geth an edge in rebuilding our homeworld!" Tali said with an energetic aura.

"That's very interesting…" said Garrus, scratching the back of his head. "But how would we know you don't just want to go down there because I'm coming?" Garrus' mandibles "curled up," forming a turian version of an assuming smile.

"Well… I didn't forget about that." Tali cooed as she snuggled up right next to the Turian.

Shepard rolled his eyes playfully. "Alright, alright. Let's go down now. We need to gear up while Cortez is prepping our ride down there. I'd like this distress signal done with. The one who sent it is probably starving down there by now."

In a dark abandoned mega-institution at the freezing planet of Tau Volantis, deep within its ruined hallways, up its massive broadcasting tower, two heavily armed men stood in front of the radio controls. One of them had his index finger pressed on top of a big red button. He wore armor that hardly looked protective. It was rusty brown, had thin plates, and not at all bulky. He was carrying what seems to be a make-shift gun. There were bloodstains all over the man's face. He had deep blue eyes and an unkempt beard. He was aged and his face had exhaustion written all over it. The other man wore red armor that looked military issued. Equipped with a utility belt, shoulder pads and a chest guard, he looked intimidating carrying a military-grade pulse rifle. His face's most prominent feature is a huge scar running down his cheek, besides that the man himself had a face that was stern and rigid, despite being slightly, humorously chubby. It befitted his personality quite well: he was a tough man, but had his soft spots. He looked like he was only a couple of years younger than his companion.

"Well? Did it work?" asked the man in red, not at all excited to hear a yes.

"I don't know. The monitor's broken so I can't tell but judging from the wiring the thing should still be working. All that's left to do is wait," replied the man in the shabby armor.

"You know that can take years right?"

"Yeah, but what else can we do? Might as well go down fighting," the man slowly sat down and buried his head into his knees as he leaned his back on the radio controls.

The vents inside the walls began to rattle.

"Hey hey hey. You still have her waiting for you back on earth. We aren't going down. We are going home."

The rattling got more violent.

The man on the floor looked up to his companion with his sad tired eyes, who was looking down on him with his eyes filled with vigor and determination despite of all the terrors they must have been through. The man on the floor couldn't help but smile.

The insides of the control room was dark, especially those away from the window overlooking Tau Volantis right in front of the radio controls. But even without clicking their flashlights open the two can see where the ear-grinding sound of blade screeching against metal was coming from: the vent grate at the opposite side of the room. Dents toward them were starting to form. It was about to burst open and let something into the same room they were in. The man in red reaches his hand out to his partner. Slowly as if nothing terrifying was about to come after them, he complies and is hoisted up by his friend at a generous pace.

At the moment both of them were firmly standing, a piece of their armor located on their chests opens up, out comes something unidentifiable at its current form. Inch-by-inch it enveloped their heads as a firm yet comfortable protective headgear. Helmets.

The depressed looking man's helmet would have looked like a bucket if it weren't for the plates in front guarding his face. Lights within the helmet beamed a powerful blue out of the three horizontal slits of the protective gear.

The fierce-looking man's helmet had blood red light shining out of the triangular eyeholes that would send a shiver down any man's spine.

Not a moment too soon the vent burst open. What appeared right in front of them did uncountable gruesome acts: growled, hissed, stalked, twitched… It was practically ready to pounce in for the kill.

Unfortunately what they were dealing with wasn't human… not anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

Somewhere in the frozen skies of Tau Volantis, Cortez's shuttle sped through the falling snow. The harsh planet was unusually gentle at the moment, so gentle the crew inside the shuttle can actually see an aesthetically pleasing view. They are organics and they were indeed delighted to take note. The vista in question was none other than the colossal moon sitting on the horizon of the planet. The "natural satellite" was half submerged into the celestial body it was very well orbiting… _literally!_ At their proximity the moon of Tau Volantis was just as big as the moon back on earth, but of course, as the moon on earth's size is a trick of perspective, so is the moon they are observing right now in Tau Volantis, which is much smaller.

"Are those… tentacles? Wait what is that?" Tali pointed out to the very small, squiggly tendrils at the base of the moon, then the moon itself.

"I wouldn't count on it, and I don't have a clue." Shepard replied.

"Maybe we can fly towards it and check it out. We might find something useful." Garrus suggested.

"Hold on archangel, distress signal first, which is a few more miles away from… whatever that is," said Cortez.

Peering down towards the white grounds of the planet, Cortez tried to look for a building of some sort that could have been used to launch the distress signal. Within moments a huge facility, old and clearly abandoned, loomed into view. Soon enough Cortez identified the broadcast tower, which was nearly as high as the altitude he was flying the shuttle. In less than a minute he found the field's helipad, far below on ground level a small walk away from the tower.

"Hey guys I'm gonna land down there," Cortez tells his passengers at the back as he pointed to the grey octagonal piece of asphalt with a huge yellow "H" painted on it. Shepard nodded and prepared his gear completely, and so did Garrus and Tali. Shepard cocked his Carnifex pistol and loaded his Avenger assault rifle, Tali tweaked with the computer on the left arm of her suit as well as cleaned her Katana shotgun, and lastly Garrus spied through his sniper rifle's scope, peering at the facility outside seeing if he can still depend on his trusty M-98 Widow. Garrus and Shepard equipped helmets to protect themselves from the biting cold, which was redundant for Tali because she was already wearing a very protective suit.

In no less than a minute the shuttle was already merely 20 feet off the ground and above the helipad. Its engines hummed a different tune as it slowed down and tried to hover above the air a few feet. Its doors slowly opened. Once it did, Shepard and his team couldn't help but raise their free hand in defense from the violent winds that roared at ground level. They jumped off the shuttle and stared at the centuries-old tower standing before them.

_Let's do this._

~xxxxx~

Furious panting, gun barrels smoking and sizzling, and blood dripping were the sounds that filled the radio control room. The blood was dripping from the dark portion of the room, where it was hard to identify where the blood was dripping from. The furious panting was of course coming from the two survivors who launched the signal. If heard rather closely their panting was slightly robotic coming out from their helmets. The one with the intimidating red eyes took a second to look behind his shoulder and out the window before casting his eyes down onto his gun to reload.

Wait. Something made him cock his head back outside the window. Something he saw.

"Hey. Is that a shuttle down there?" He said with his robot voice as he approached the window with his partner to get a better look.

"Aww crap. More of Danik's men?" His partner replied, his voice just as robotically augmented.

"What do you mean more of Danik's men?" the military man quipped. "Danik died who knows how long ago and we haven't encountered any of his men in days."

"Yeah you're right. You think someone actually responded to our distress signal?" The man with the blue lights borrowed his friend's gun and used its scope to peer onto the shuttle that just recently landed.

"People are getting off the thing…" He murmured, then handed the gun back to his friend. "So Carver, should we just stand over here?"

"Heck, anything is better than just standing here waiting for our asses to rot off. They'll come up here, we're sure about that. Let's clear the building of the freaks before they do. Maybe gather some supplies. Then we see if they're hostile or not."

The two men marched to the dark portion of the room then clicked their flashlights open. Carver's flashlight was of the soldier's sort. It was built-in on the side of his gun. The man with the brown armor and blue lights, Isaac, had a handheld flashlight attached to his gun in an improvised way. It worked just as well as Carver's.

Their pacing slowed as they reached the doorway of the room. Their stance became firm as they took cautious steps towards the hall. Eyes trained on where their flashlights pointed. Isaac was on the left, while Carver on the right. Before he forgot, Carver reloaded his weapon in a matter of seconds and then aimed at the path ahead of them. The only light present in the long dark hallway were the ones shining out of their helmets, their flashlights, and the unique RIG on their backs.

The RIG was a functional add-on invented by an innovative human, trending at some parts of the galaxy, especially for biotic engineers because it helps groups work together by displaying important information on the back, a place supervisors can see with ease while the engineer is repairing something. The RIG primarily glows and represents a person's health as segments of a column, akin and aligned with the individual's spinal column. A bit to the right displays the stasis in a reversed "C" semi-circle. The RIG can include the individual's kinesis abilities, which is just as valuable to a biotic engineer as the stasis ability. Telekinesis, or kinesis for short, sometimes called G.R.I.P., is the ability of the individual to carry objects via artificial gravity. This is however, not information that is visible on the RIG.

Both RIGs were at full power, with two long, healthy segmented columns glowing calming colors on their backs. Isaac's was sky bluish, while Carver's was a deep violet.

Feet crunched through the snow and ice of the metallic floors of the ancient-futuristic mega-institution. Shepard was on point. He and his team walked in a triangular formation stealthily towards the door of the building in front of them. Their weapons were up and they were ready for an attack, if ever.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey Shep, I'm starting to regret this," Garrus said. It wasn't obvious because of the helmet, but the turian was shivering inside his suit. "Maybe I should have listened to Tali when she said this planet was a huge ball of ice."

"_Small_ ball of ice," Tali corrected.

Shepard ignored what Garrus said and what Tali retorted. They were close enough to the door for him to do so.

The door looked thick and heavy. A disc-shaped hologram with the word "open" was on the center. Shepard instinctively touched the hologram and the word "processing" took the other one's place. He let out a sigh and his squad slightly let down their guard as they waited for the door to open. When it finally did the trio raised their weapons back up again and ventured forth into the building and out of the cold.

It was dark inside, without the need to mention any word all three of them clicked their flashlights open and began to let it wonder the room of the building.

A barracks, looked like it. An abandoned, bloodied, twisted one at that. Beds were ragged, empty tin cans and dirty attire lay on the cold rusty floor along with some ancient-looking corpses…

"Just like boot camp all over again, huh Garrus?" said Shepard to lighten the mood their new found place gave.

"They trained us like hell back at C-Sec sure, but don't you think you're slightly exaggerating it?" Garrus replied as he scoured the room for anything useful just like Shepard.

"Hey guys look at this!" Tali said, pointing her flashlight towards a wall. There were words written in what seems to be dried blood.

MAKE  
US  
WHOLE

"Don't suppose anybody wrote this with their blood just for kicks, do you?" The witty Turian was ignored.

A faint rattling came from the vents in the ceiling. Nothing the crew got anxious about.

"There's something else here!" Tali exclaimed as she examined the item of interest on the desk nearby without taking her gun off the wall.

"It's a map of the facility," the quarian told her squad mates. "Hmm, if I'm correct the way towards the broadcasting tower should be…" she raises her finger from the map and points to a door in the darkness. "Over there." The door wouldn't have been visible if it weren't for the blue circular hologram to signify it was open, nevertheless Tali pointed at it with her gun's flashlight to make sure.

Shepard and company approached the door, as slowly and cautiously as they were trained. The crew never noticed it because they were too occupied with making sure no hostiles were in sight, but the rattling in the vents eventually returned, slowly getting louder as they got nearer to their destination.

Shepard touched the hologram, and unlike the one before, it opened up almost immediately. What was behind the door was a long steep stairway.

_A low demonic moan and unnatural feisty growls were heard…_

Shepard let out a small gasp at what else was behind the door. Garrus and Tali were forced to disperse and see what got their commander off guard.

Dozens of… cocoons lined up the ceiling that roofed the stairways. They fell one by one towards the floor. Some stumbled downwards from where they originally fell because of how steep the staircase was. But in unison they all stood upright, and out from their backs sprouted up sharp, bony, sickle-like blades. Multiple pairs of red eyes glared at Shepard and his allies, some coming from even farther up, from the darkest regions of the staircase. The three spots of light trembled at the number of beasts in their path. There was a terrifying moment of silence.

Finally, the one closest to Shepard and his team let out a bloodcurdling screech, and rushed right at the commander. Everyone else behind the aforementioned beast followed in his tracks.

"**OPEN FIRE!**" Shepard yelled at the top of his lungs as he pulled hard on the trigger of his assault rifle. Garrus and Tali fought the horde of attackers with an assault rifle and submachine gun, respectively.

With each bullet fired, the stairway lit up entirely, giving the crew glimpses of the bodies with the round red eyes. There was an army of those animals waiting for them by the stairway, and they were very, very hard to kill.

One of those things sped through his own kind, which were falling one by one from the onslaught of bullets the commander and his team were raining down on them. It got so close to Shepard it jumped in the air and attempted to sink its razor-sharp blades into his shoulders.

Shepard effectively backed up to dodge the attack, leaving his attacker's blades stuck in the metallic floor. The commander expertly holstered his assault rifle and materialized his omni-blade. In one swift swing he grunted triumphantly as he cut the limbs that connected the blades of the beast to his body, and followed up by pulling out his heavy pistol, aiming at point blank range, and shooting the head off of the demon that was agonizing in pain. To finish off the graceful steps to the commander's violent sequencing of moves he threw a grenade at the never-ending army, spun around, and dragged his companions out the doorway from where they came from. The commander and his teammates dove and hit the floor that was just outside the room they were in. All three of them guffawed as the hard floor knocked the air out of their chests. The door shut tightly before any more can get close to them.

A muffled explosion followed by yelps of pain and demons choking in their own blood was heard.

Shepard, Garrus, and Tali took their sweet time on the ground, inhaling and exhaling deeply through their helmets that gave their breaths a slightly static sound as if from an antiquated 1950s earth radio.

"Keelah! What were those things!?" Tali's voice trembled beneath her heavy breathing.

Slowly they stood up, Garrus being the first. He hoisted Tali on her feet while Shepard spun around on his back and sat up with a grunt. The commander was taking advantage of the newfound silence to calm him and his teammates down. His heart was still racing and despite how frigid cold the planet is the commander swore he felt a trickle of sweat run down his forehead.

Only… there wasn't silence. It was just now when the rattling of the vents, now made up of metal screeching against metal and violently stomping feet, was given attention by the group.

"Shhh. Do you guys hear that?" Garrus murmured, his head cocking left and right for the source of the sound.

_It was coming from everywhere…_

A vent grate nearby burst open and out comes yet another hostile. It was too close for any of the three to do anything. It got its hands on Garrus.


	4. Chapter 4

"Bosh'tet!" Tali cursed.

At such a close proximity it was certain the thing attacking Garrus right now was not of the same type as the ones that attacked them a while ago. It had a ropey body made up of stiff material that looks similar to the bark of a tree. The material entwined with itself to form limbs and a head. From what looks like the head, out from an orifice it was drooling fluid that sizzled and smoke as it hit the ground: acid.

Garrus struggled violently while the monster attempted to drip its fluids onto his helmet, eventually all over his face. It wheezed and blubbered while Garrus grunted and stammered.

Shepard stood up frantically, wanting to get the hostile off of his best friend.

Tali beat the commander to it. She took out her shotgun as she squeezed herself in between Garrus and the monster. She pressed the tip of her weapon onto its belly and pulled the trigger. In one loud boom bits and pieces of barky flesh and slime splattered all over the near vicinity. Tali stumbled over Garrus and the couple fell down due to the shotgun's recoil.

"Jesus, there's more over there!" Shepard blurted pointing to the other side of the room.

Multiple vent grates blasted open. Out came dozens of monsters, demons, beasts, of all shapes and sizes. Some from the ones before, some look like the one that attacked Garrus, some clung to the ceiling, some skinny, some morbidly obese... to top it all off the corpses Shepard and company saw has just come back to life, wielding axes and heavy wrenches as weapons.

"Fall back! Fall back!" Shepard yelped rather than ordered, shooting at the ones nearby with his heavy pistol because his assault rifle was due for a reloading. "Somebody break that window open, we'll funnel them through there." Shepard gave the window to their left a quick look as if he pointed with his eyes. Tali stood up immediately and helped Shepard apply pressure against their enemies.

Garrus stood up as he rushed to the window and bludgeoned its glass with all his might using his sniper rifle. Cobwebs formed on the glass under the pressure of Garrus' hits. Eventually the window shattered. The bitter cold of the planet's blizzard was felt by his Turian face inside his helmet. Its winds flew into the building.

"It's open!" Garrus said behind his shoulder as he climbed out of the window. "C'mon we'll deal with them out here!" He set up five of his signature proximity mines around their makeshift exit.

Shepard and Tali went for the window without taking their eyes and gun off their opponents until their weapons ran out of ammo. Tali got to the window first, and then Shepard. Garrus gave a hand and helped his teammates out of the window.

They scurried off and gave themselves distance. It was not long before their pursuers were climbing out of the window after them, hollering and panting feverishly as they did. Just as planned, the proximity mines all exploded at once, causing what's left of the window to collapse, crushing the abominations and sealing off the monsters from getting to Shepard and his team.

The Normandy team let out a sigh and eased their guard completely. They did it. They were in the clear. No vents, no darkness, nothing. They were safe. They would have dropped to the ground if only it wasn't unbearably cold.

"Hands up where I can see them." An unfamiliar voice said.

"You heard me," said the voice. "Drop your weapons and put your hands up!"

People, Shepard thought, except he was dubious because the voice was rather robotic. Shepard gave a sigh of relief in his mind. _At least it's not any more of those things._

It was Isaac. He and Carver were trudging in the snow towards Shepard and his team.

Reluctantly, Shepard, Garrus, and Tali complied. They dropped their weapons, barrels still smoking, and raised their hands to head level.

"Now don't try anything funny. We saw the shit you pulled and no way in hell you guys aren't tired after all of that," said Carver.

He's right, Shepard thought. Shepard values the lives of his teammates and would not dare to put them in any more danger than what they bargained for when they signed up to take down the Reapers.

Isaac and Carver finally appeared right in front of the three.

"… Are you two the ones who sent out the distress signal?" Shepard asked, not forgetting the reason why they're down on the planet.

"Yeah. Yeah we are," Isaac answered, considering dropping his gun down.

"Not a bright idea pointing guns at your one and only hope for escaping this hellhole," Garrus barked.

"… You Alliance?" Carver asked.

"Yes, and we have come to help you. If you keep up this charade though we might just change our minds!-" Tali hissed.

"Whoa they're not only alliance. Look at this guy. He's no ordinary soldier," Isaac started before Tali can finish. The man pointed his laser dot right at the N7 emblem Shepard has on his chest.

There was a small moment of silence. Tension loomed between the two groups. The commander was deep in thought for a moment. Shepard heaved a sigh, and a sympathetic composure filled his face.

"I'm Commander Shepard. The turian on the right is Garrus Vakarian. The quarian on the left is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," Shepard spoke up as humbly as he could. "We came to get you off this planet."

Another moment of silence followed. It was abrupt when Isaac and Carver turned to each other. They nodded then eased down their guns and let their helmets unlatch from their faces. Shepard and his crew stared at the duo as their helmets went off, making sure that there really were men beneath those suits. The helmets folded in on themselves and went back into the centerpiece of their armor. "Sorry about getting off on the wrong foot, commander. The last group of people we met tried to kill us, just keeping an eye out." Isaac's voice sounded normal – the kind you would expect from someone with his age and profession – when he took off his helmet. "I'm Isaac Clarke, a military engineer for EarthGov." Isaac jerked his head sideways towards his companion beside him, "He's Lieutenant John Carver."

"Hey," Carver was cold as he greeted Shepard and his team.

Shepard was stunned a couple of seconds too long from the survivors' unique helmets.

"It's commander," He finally blurted out in a rather blunt fashion. The commander and his squad bent down to pick up their weapons. They were held at gunpoint for only a couple of minutes but their guns were already covered in a thin coating of snow.

"We have a shuttle waiting at the facility's helipad around this building." pointed Shepard, shaking and dusting the snow off of his rifle. "We'll accompany you there and it'll take you to safety."

"Wait… you're just going to _accompany_ us?" Isaac queried as they all started marching off to where Shepard pointed. "You mean you're going to stay here?" Isaac made certain. Carver and Isaac's helmets went back on as they ventured forth.

"Yes. We're off to scavenge this planet for Prothean technology," Tali commented. "And perhaps some of the ancient human planet cracking machinery found in the ruins like this one. It could help us in our mission greatly."

"Pfft, you're kidding right?" Carver snickered. "You guys barely survived that one attack a while ago."

"Oh trust me, we've been into plenty of situations where we barely got out with our skin and carapaces intact," Garrus boasted. "We'll take our chances."

Isaac and Carver exchanged glances, baffled at the bravado of Shepard's team.

"Hang on commander," Isaac chuckled darkly as he caught up with Shepard who was on point. "I suggest we get off this planet. _All of us. _There's no way all of you are coming out of this planet alive if you stay any longer."

"That's a negative," Shepard replied without hesitating, not taking his eyes off the path in front of them. "We need every bit of tech if we want to save the galaxy."

Isaac slowed down in his tracks and gave a long sigh knowing the commander won't change his mind.

"Aww, forget them," Carver placed a hand on the engineer's shoulder when the lieutenant caught up to him. "We're finally going home Isaac. You'll finally get to see Ellie again," Carver subtly shook the engineer, hoping to encourage him.

"If Ellie was here she'd want to protect everyone… I want to protect everyone," Isaac muttered.

All five of them were only halfway around the gigantic building when Shepard and his team picked up a transmission with their earpieces. Static buzzed as Shepard and his crew placed a hand over their ear (or attempted to considering they had helmets on,) trying to make sense of the message. "Commander, Garrus, Tali," it was Cortez. "Get back to the shuttle. Now."


	5. Chapter 5

All five of them ran for the helipad. Shepard told Isaac and Carver what the problem was, prompting the engineer and the lieutenant to pick up their speed. They sprinted around the corner of the building and towards the bright lights of the shuttle that penetrated the obscuring white of the blizzard. The closer they got the more the whirring of the shuttle's engines rang in their ears and the higher the shuttle seems to be for them to climb onto effortlessly.

Closer now, it was as they feared. The whiteness of the blizzard still obscured the view slightly, but they could comprehend the whole picture. Cortez' shuttle was already too high for them to reach, beneath the vehicle was a large group of silhouettes, hopping and jumping like mad furiously trying to grab the shuttle in the air.

"NECROMORPHS!" Isaac yelled as he and Carver sprang into action and headed for the scene toting their guns.

"Necro _what!?_" Garrus yelled dumbfounded, but was either ignored or not heard by the survivors. A necromorph was able to stick one of its blades into one of the shuttle's legs. It achieved its goal but was now hanging and frantically swaying, not knowing what to do next.

Inside the shuttle, Cortez was panicking and scared out of his wits. He pumped the gas, causing the shuttle's rockets to flare, incinerating the lower half of the necromorph who hung tenaciously. The shuttle soared into the sky and flew away.

"NOOOOOOOO!" Carver shouted at the top of his lungs, and then focused all of his fury on mowing down the necromorphs who forced his one and only chance of escaping to flee. Isaac and Carver were so close the silhouette effect evaporated and all the grotesque features of the necromorphs were there for them to see. The necromorphs heard Carver's roar and began to focus their attention on the lieutenant and Isaac.

Shepard's team followed behind Isaac and Carver who seemed to be leading the necromorph extermination.

Necromorphs popped out from the snow frighteningly close to Shepard and his team as they ran for the survivors. He and his squad concentrated fire at those closest to them, killing the hostiles effectively. Eventually they reached Isaac and Carver who were already at the center of the helipad.

"Clever," Shepard remarked when he went back-to-back with Isaac, shooting down more of those monstrosities. "Standing on the helipad so they don't jump out from beneath you."

Isaac fired out a few shots at the necromorphs going for him before replying, "I have more tricks up my sleeve when it comes to dealing with necromorphs, commander."

A necromorph came dashing towards Isaac's direction at a ghoulish pace and performed a daring leap from a distance. Midway its jump, Isaac stretched his hand out and from it came forth a bluish electronic blob of smoke that flew at a slow velocity for a projectile. It came into contact with the hostile and its entire body slowed down in mid-air as it was coated in blue. The commander thought it was biotics at work. Shepard was able to examine the necromorph closely. It was only the upper half of the person it once was. Its spine stretched on from where the body didn't and the last segment of its vertebrae was sharp and pointy. Its jaw was permanently open and lined with protruding fangs. Its eyes were washed white and tears of blood ran down from them. It looked like a person horribly mutated into a scorpion. Isaac rolled sideways to evade. He dodged its attack awkwardly, being the measly engineer unfit for combat that he is. The necromorph landed on the rough gravel of the helipad on its palms, still slow and coated in blue. Isaac then casually aimed his plasma cutter near the tip of the leaper's tail. He pulled the trigger and very slowly the blood of the necromorph came gushing forth. Its sharp tail floated in the air after being dismembered from its body. Using another one of his _tricks_, Isaac reached out for the limb drifting in the air and out came a faint light accompanied by static that formed a line from Isaac's hand and the tail. It zipped its way to just merely a few inches away from Isaac's hand, which was still raised. Shepard thought it was more biotics, until he heard a noticeable hum coming from Isaac's trick. "Biotic tricks don't usually do that…" The commander said to himself. The tail was frozen in the air but not floating around this time, its sharp tip aimed right at the necromorph. With a flick of Isaac's wrist, the tail was launched and it sunk deep into the leaper's torso. The necromorph was knocked back at normal speed a few feet by the force, dead and incapacitated.

"Take their limbs off and use it against them, we save up on ammo that way!" Isaac shouted behind his shoulder, keeping the volume over the sound of the guns blasting and necromorphs dying. Shepard nodded and took Isaac's tip wholeheartedly. He wanted to ask what exactly did the engineer do but there was no time as he dashed towards Carver to aid him fight. Shepard reloaded his assault rifle and delved into the part of the helipad where the necromorphs were thick.

There was one thing however, that Isaac forgot to mention to the commander…

Shepard was on a rampage. He had the fleetest feet in the group. There are very few warriors who would charge right up against an army of necromorphs with their twisted features and overwhelming numbers, especially considering one alone was hard to kill already. Shepard is one of those warriors.

Shepard was sprinting towards the group of necromorphs when one in front of the rest caught his eye. It had two scythe-like limbs that it flailed in the air as it made its way to the commander. It got close and slashed at Shepard, who was able to easily dodge the attack. In controlled bursts, Shepard shot at the slasher's appendages. It then began to retaliate and swing its arms at Shepard again, who would use his well-honed reflexes to dodge and shoot at the slasher's limbs once more. One of its limbs fell to the ground and the necromorph squealed in pain. The commander took advantage of the moment and was about to finish off the hostile with a thrust of his omni-blade, but the necromorph was able to parry the attack and shatter the melee weapon into pieces. _Shit,_ the commander thought. He can't use the omni-blade for a while. The slasher withdrew its remaining blade and was about to swing it horizontally, the commander was quick enough to duck and evade the attack. At the lowest point of the duck, he picked up the blade that the slasher lost, and he shoved it up the necromorph's belly. It struggled and writhed as the commander pushed the blade deeper into it. Shepard was so close to the reanimated corpse he could hear it hissing and was able to examine closely the slasher's mouth. It was missing a lower jaw and it made up for it by having pincers akin to an ant's. Shepard saw the necromorph raise its remaining blade and before the slasher can drive it into Shepard's back the commander summoned up all of his strength and forced the blade up from its belly to run up across its lungs and heart and all the way to its head. Shepard felt its ribs break and lungs squelch as he ran pass them with the bony improvised weapon. Shepard gave a strong push and got the now definitely lifeless body off of him.

Shepard reloaded his weapon just as he faced the group of necromorphs. They were drawing closer quickly while firing projectiles at the commander.

Shepard evasively backed away whilst avoiding enemy fire and pulled out a grenade from his utility belt and tossed it on the floor a few feet away from the large group of hostiles. Just in time when the legion of undead savages was in radius the grenade exploded. Smoke erupted but Shepard saw arms, bits, and tentacles fly in the air. The floor beneath from where the grenade exploded was black as ash and what's left of the necromorphs were still crawling their way towards him.

Shepard equipped his heavy pistol and was about to finish them off. Shepard aimed at the nearest necromorph, the ugliest one.

All of a sudden something grabbed Shepard from behind and pulled him in closer.

A big black slasher with thick blades got to the commander from behind. Before Shepard could react it brought one of its blades down towards Shepard's head. Necromorphs were unimaginably strong and normally that attack would have launched a person's head flying. With a little help from his helmet and by rolling with the punch, the commander survived the hit. The commander still felt the pain however; Shepard felt the impact of the force and he staggered a bit. The commander would have struggled free if the necromorph did not hold him in close and tight with its other arm.

The necromorph raised its blade another time and was about to strike again. Shepard caught it just in time. As the slasher tried to shake and pull its limb out of the commander's tenacious grip he jammed his heavy pistol into the necromorph's ant-like mouth and blew its brains out. The recoil and the weight of the now certainly dead body made Shepard stumble backwards and eventually fall to the ground. Shepard took a deep breath and was about to heave the body off of him.

Shepard was surprised he couldn't.

The body that was on him began to convulse, kick, and twitch. It was more frantic than ever this time. Shepard attempted to melee the corpse with his heavy pistol at the back but to no avail. Numerous hits to the back with such a hefty weapon would have made any man yield, but not the reanimated corpse. It brandished its blades incredibly fast and launched a brutal onslaught on Shepard who was pinned and defenseless.

Shepard felt his head fly back and forth as the blades ran across his helmet, slowly tearing it apart. First the glass began to crack, and then a piece at the upper area of the helmet chipped off. As if that wasn't enough, the blades stabbed right through Shepard's shoulder guards and managed to scratch Shepard's skin. The commander's freehand clawed at the snowy gravel, eventually balling into a fist. The commander cannot do anything but endure the pain.

"SHEPARD!" Garrus howled, spying Shepard in agony with his marksman eyes from a distance.

"GET IT OFF ME!" Shepard cried. He didn't care who it was. He just wanted the corpse off of him.

Finally Shepard's helmet cracked open. The brutal blizzard washed all over his face and made him grit his teeth even harder than he was already. The commander wanted to raise his arms up to his face so he can defend himself but the body was in the way. One of the scythes got stuck at the collar of Shepard's armor. Shepard choked and guffawed as the body attempted to wriggle its blade free, eventually causing a tear in the hard exterior of the commander's armor. The cold seeped down to Shepard's chest. The blade continued to wriggle and writhe eventually piercing into Shepard's neck. The pang of pain was sharp as Shepard could feel the large tip of the blade work its way into his flesh. The necromorph's other blade did what it could and repeatedly hit Shepard's head across from one side. The limb was too big to cut so the damage it caused was blunt. Shepard felt the impact of the hits, his sight blacked out momentarily after every smack. The world spun faster after every hit. He wasn't sure if he should be happy his head was still stuck on his shoulders. The necromorph was weaker now than it was a while ago when it had its head.

Shepard's vision was reduced to nothing but a mere blur. Just when the commander thought it was over for him, just when he thought the slasher would be able to dig into his neck and make him bleed to death, he saw the black blur above him turn blue. Shepard felt the snow move slightly faster for a moment. A couple of loud, powerful bullets whizzed right above him and the limbs of his attacker fell cleanly off. All of a sudden Shepard felt the snow slow back down to normal speed. The commander moved his head to the right and he saw a translucent orange sphere in the distance being chased by necromorphs out into the whiteness of the blizzard. Shepard then turned his head to the left and he saw a blur clad in blue running towards him.

"_Garrus_…" He whimpered. His mouth ached as he tried to speak.

Garrus kicked the limp body off of his friend and pulled out the blade stuck on Shepard's collar.

The turian pulled off a wry grimace inside his blue-and-chrome themed helmet. He has never seen Shepard so beat up. There was a long cut on the commander's cheek, which was gruesomely purple and blue. There was a huge lump on the left side of his forehead which deformed his face drastically. His lower lip was popped and it made it look like Shepard was drooling blood.

"Hang tight Shepard, there's barely any of them left." Garrus assured the commander as he knelt down and brought out his omni-tool. "You're going to need lots of medi-gel." As always, Vakarian was cool and composed despite the burning blizzard and heat of the battle.

Shepard could hear footsteps coming from his right. "Aww, Jesus. Shepard, you alright?" A voice ringing with sincerity said. It was Isaac. "Thank God you aren't dead yet." Shepard wanted to see the engineer but it was too painful for Shepard to move his head anymore. The commander heard Isaac's helmet click and shuffle off.

"Thanks for firing off that stasis. Isaac, was it? I wouldn't have gotten clear shots if it weren't for it," said Garrus, talking to Isaac. "And Shepard here would've been dead for sure," Garrus muttered as he shifted his glance from the engineer to the left for dead commander.

"Happy to help," Isaac replied despite his eyes and mind more focused on Shepard's state. "Listen, Shepard will be as good as dead still if we don't find a way to cover him up soon. This planet is a killing machine. That includes the blizzard."

"Heh, tell me about it." Garrus scoffed.

"Ah, fuck. This is all my fault; forgot to tell you guys necromorphs can't be killed with one bullet to the head unlike everything else, and that they're smart enough to play dead." Isaac mentally beat himself up and took responsibility over the commander's injuries.

"Hey commander, you okay?" Isaac snapped his fingers thrice in front of Shepard's bloody face. "You're definitely in a lot of pain, but give us a sign you're still with us."

A low guttural moan came from the commander's throat. "Good, good. You can hear us," Isaac was relieved as he regained a bit of hope. "Your friend, the one in purple, she's an engineer too ain't she? She just summoned a combat drone and led the remaining necromorphs into the blizzard. There weren't a lot of them left but we need absolutely all distractions taken care off to fix you up again. Carver took care of the mess you made with the grenade."

Isaac looked back over his shoulder and Carver was furiously stomping on the limping, crawling necromorphs Shepard was supposed to kill. The guts and flesh squelched beneath Carver's boots and thudded wetly on the hard helipad as the lieutenant cussed and swear in the short distance.

"Still is," a corner of Isaac's mouth curled up.


	6. Chapter 6

Tali materialized from the blizzard as she went back to the helipad. She left it in the first place to guide the combat drone away from the Commander. She crossed her arms and held onto them tight as she shivered in her suit. It wasn't the cold. _Those were the most disgusting things we've ever fought…_ was what all Tali was thinking.

The quarian passed by Carver, who was still stomping ferociously at the dead cold meat which were previously moving and practically alive just a few moments ago. The sight she saw coupled with the sound the lieutenant was making with his boots made Tali's stomach churn. Her cheeks bloated up, and with a hiss of air she unlatched the helmet open. She hurled gratuitously on the floor.

Carver heard the poor lady puke, and stopped his tantrum. They say what was beneath a female quarian's helmet was a beautiful sight, it's a pity Carver couldn't see it because Tali's mouth was smothered in yellowish half-digested material. Tali coughed awkwardly and pressed the helmet close before proceeding to her wounded commander.

Shepard was feeling better now. All of his wounds were healed and his vision returned to normal. He sighed happily when his neck did not hurt when he turned his head to the right, despite the freezing cold. The commander took a deep breath and exhaled, his breath turned to frost right in front of his eyes. Behind Isaac, he saw Tali closing in from the distance, behind the female engineer, Carver marched towards the commander as well.

"How is he?" Tali asked anxiously.

"C-C-Cold…" Shepard stammered.

"And dead if we don't get him into a cozy warm suit in a matter of seconds," Isaac butted in. He stood up and scanned the area, "Or some fire. Don't think we'll get lucky with that though."

"J-J-Joker…" Shepard managed to say beneath his clattering teeth. His body was beginning to shiver.

"Of course, Shepard," Tali nodded then she brought out her omnitool to talk to the pilot.

"Joker, we ran into trouble."

"Tali? How's Shepard? Why wasn't he the one who made the call? Did he-" The lovable, comic voice wasn't itself. It was filled with worry as it talked quickly over the microphone.

"He's alright, Joker." Tali eased the pilot as she looked down to her commander who was pitifully shivering like a wet dog. "For now…"

"For now? What's that supposed to mean? Hey listen before you bomb us with some bad news we have one of our own."

"Cortez is stranded on a shipwreck," EDI popped in. "Mines floating near the outer atmosphere of Tau Volantis got to him as he tried to get off the planet and back on the Normandy. He radioed in for back up after he landed the ship on an ancient CMS Terra Nova. What does Shepard have to say about this?"

"Shepard-" Tali started.

"H-H-Help h-him…"

"Understood, Shepard. James, Liara, and I are going in to help Cortez," EDI replied.

"Wait EDI, now's our turn to give bad news," Tali groaned.

"Shepard here was busted up pretty good by the hostiles on the planet-" Garrus begun.

"Hold on, there are hostiles?" Joker was confused and couldn't keep up with what's happening down on the planet and Cortez on the shipwreck.

"We'll give you a brief… well not so brief, report on the mission soon, but right now Shepard needs a suit, fast."

Shepard's eyes rolled upward as his shaking got more hectic. He was losing consciousness.

"EDI, launch a suit kiosk on our coordinates. Make it _extremely _accurate; we're losing Shepard fast!" Tali emphasized.

"Launching probe," EDI declared.

In a few seconds, the group – excluding Shepard – saw something fall out of the sky. It hit the snowy ground of the planet with a muffled thud. It fell very much farther from where the group was, still.

"Alright people let's move!" Isaac ordered. "Carver, help Garrus here carry the commander."

Carver grumbled a bit, still mad he's not going home yet, but obeyed Isaac. He angrily marched off to the fallen commander and hoisted him up along with the help of the turian.

"Huh, it's a bit hard to see with all this snow," mumbled Isaac. The engineer tuned in his navigator to the frequency of the suit kiosk on the launched probe with Tali's help. When he was done punching a few buttons on his navigator a bright orange line of light came out from his wrist and slithered from the ground to the whiteness beyond. "Come on, follow me."

The group braved the blizzard. Carver and Garrus carried the fallen commander on their shoulders, Isaac was on point, and Tali, albeit not her expertise, was watching their six for any more hostiles that might sneak up on them. They walked a stone's throw distance. The commander's shivering gradually got hectic, then gradually slowed down as his skin turned pale white.

Shepard slowly lost his vision. Everything was getting darker, blurrier. His lungs burned with the freezing air of Tau Volantis as he inhaled and exhaled. His thoughts started to distort as he was jostled in the carrying arms of Garrus and Carver. He blinked slowly, trying to regain his keen senses, and then he fell asleep.

"By the spirits!" Garrus exclaimed. "We're losing him fast, how much farther do we have to go?" Archangel was actually starting to worry.

"I don't know, okay?" an irritated Isaac replied. "Just keep walking."

"Hey hey hey," Carver quipped at the unconscious commander as the lieutenant slapped his cheeks. "Don't you die on me. Don't you _fuckin'_ die on me."

"Watch it, don't you treat him like that!" Tali barked at Carver. "Show a little more respect you brute…"

"I'm just trying to keep him alive," Carver aggressively raised his voice. "If only your ship pilot knew how to aim then we wouldn't have to walk this whole damn distance."

"Guys guys, let's work together here," Isaac pleaded, trying to keep the group together while leading the path.

"Maybe this will help," Isaac said as he turned around and coated the shivering commander in suspended animation with a shot of stasis. "That'll buy us some time."

"There it is I see it," Garrus pointed to a dark silhouette that looked like an upside down rocket half buried into the snow a short distance away from where they were. "Move people. We can't let Shepard die like this!"

Shepard opened his eyes, and he wasn't in the frozen tundra of Tau Volantis in the arms of two burly soldiers anymore, he was transported to someplace humid and hot where he was lying on sandy ground, water lapped onto and off his body. _Ocean water? _the commander thought. Shepard was confused, but he felt great. He sat up and took a deep breath, savoring the sticky hot air that cooled his lungs. He examined his hands; he was wearing different gloves. He let his eyes trace the contour of his own body and he was wearing his old armor from back when…

"Shepard!" a strong female voice came from behind a few rocks sticking out from the sand. "There you are. We've been looking everywhere for you, commander."

The commander turned around and his mouth flew wide open. "… Ashley?"


	7. Chapter 7

Ashley Williams, the commander's comrade long lost to the Virmire event, was standing before Shepard himself. Her arms were crossed and she had the look of an irked mother glaring down at her naughty child.

"I…" the commander trailed off. What was he doing? What's happened to him? Why was he so cold just a while ago? He forgot everything.

Ashley rolled her eyes and approached her leader to give him a hand up. Shepard stood up unsteadily, and let his eyes roam the area. Can it be? The sandy shores and Salarians skulking about could only mean one thing: He was actually back on Virmire. And Ashley… she's still alive!

"I… can't believe it," said Shepard. "I thought you were-"

"Oh I am. And still is," Ashley cut in bluntly, making her previous manners that resembled mock toughness into antagonistic intentions. Shepard was miffed at this, and his facial expression drooped. A heavy dark cloud loomed above them, casting a dark gigantic shadow.

"And you know why? Because of you!" She stabbed an index finger at Shepard's chest. The commander was very slightly pushed back by this. More dark clouds blotted the sky.

"Some commander you are! You left me to die!" Ashley was practically shouting now. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she strode towards the commander. Thunder began to rumble in the sky and Shepard was slowly getting pushed into the water. Shepard stepped backwards, the water reaching up to just below his waist as Ashley yelled at him some more.

"I believed in you! In my final moments, I thought you would come for me… to rescue me!" Ashley howled. Her voice was beginning to distort into something that sounded inhuman and demonic. The tears that welled up in her eyes began to run down her cheeks, almost immediately they turned blood red. The sky began to pour.

Ashley's eyes and mouth began to glow blindingly white as she sloshed her way to the commander. Shepard was panicking, he splashed backwards in attempts to get away from his frightening, dead comrade. Shepard's heavy armor did not help as it sunk the commander down to the ocean floor. The commander submerged, but before he could've done anything underwater he felt two strong hands from above grab his rigid collar and hoist him up. The sight that greeted him out of the water was none other than the now demented Ashley, mouth still wide open and flashing a blinding light whose armor is wrecked and her skin pale white as a ghost's.

"MAKE… US… WHOLE." Then with monstrous strength, Ashley lifted the commander by the neck with one hand, and plunged him into the water to drown.

Shepard kept his eyes shut tight. So tight his nose scrunched up and wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes. He felt an ungodly cold air run all over his body. The commander's chest began to burn again and he started to shiver. He opened his eyes and the only things he saw were a couple of blurs. One was blue, towards his left. It was holding onto his arm and shoulder. The one on the right is purple, and it was holding onto his other arm and shoulder. The two blurs are of course none other than Garrus and Tali. They have reached the suit kiosk.

"Three. Two. One. PUSH!" Garrus ordered. Tali complied and the both of them heaved Shepard away. The commander fell in place to an elongated star-shaped hole on a metallic wall. The two loyal teammates backed away from the commander.

Within moments, a yellow alarm light whirred and spun. Braces clung onto Shepard's arms and legs, and the suit kiosk shut itself away from the world. It made a low mechanical hum and from the very small vertical slit of the tightly shut door, a light can be seen descending its way from the top to the bottom, like the light from a document scanner.

Garrus, Tali, Isaac, and Carver watched the suit kiosk from outside, waiting for the commander to come out in new and protective armor. Garrus and Tali in a stance that is ready to catch the commander just in case he falls to the ground after the process.

In a few moments the doors whooshed open. A cloud of steam fluttered away and the commander fell on his feet.

Shepard felt… strong. His face was no longer pale and his movements were sturdy and firm once again. The commander examined his new armor.

It was themed black, red, and white just like his previous attire, but it was much less bulkier. A lone shoulder guard is stylishly padded on his right arm, and a centerpiece much like the ones Isaac and Carver have is installed into his very own chest plate. The universal N7 logo was shiny and present next to the centerpiece.

The commander was not able to contain his grin.

Shepard let his new helmet envelope his face. It came from the short V-shaped part of the armor on his chest. The helmet clinked and shuffled as it moved, ending its sequence by beaming a strong light from within. The light that burst forth was midnight blue, the color of outer space from the eyes of an earthbound human being.

Various statistics, crosshairs, and words encumbered Shepard's view. The technical heads-up-display was alien to the commander, who was only used to just seeing his shield levels on his HUD, and sometimes an auto-aiming crosshair when he puts on his sniper-enhancing accessory.

All of the crosshairs wandering Shepard's field of vision suddenly turned red and zoned in on something indistinguishable from far behind the commander's four comrades.

Shepard approached it.

The four members of the group gawked at the new and improved commander as he strode down their way. Without warning the commander raised his hand and shot out a blob of stasis. All four of them evaded at the second it came into close proximity.

The shot of stasis hit something. It wasn't Garrus, Tali, Carver, nor Isaac.

It hit a necromorph. It was a slasher, similar to the one that attacked Shepard.

All eyes were on the reanimated corpse in suspended animation. It was posed in a sprinting stance, slowly inching towards the direction of the group.

Shepard strode towards the necromorph. On his way he bent over to pick the plasma cutter Isaac dropped when the engineer leaped out of the way. The commander shot one of the monster's blades off. He stretched out his hand for the appendage from a distance, thus activating the kinesis module on his suit. The razor sharp bone zipped from the premises of the necromorph to inches from the palm of Shepard's hand. The commander reeled his arm back and tossed the blade into his attacker's face with all his might. _Bullseye. _Yet another necromorph was flung far away from the picture.

"I could get used to this," Shepard snickered as he opened and closed the palm of his throwing hand.

Everyone approached the commander. Tali and Garrus cheered, Isaac patted Shepard on the back, and Carver actually smiled inside his helmet.

"Nice one chief," Carver commented. "You moved just as slick as Isaac over here."

"He's got state-of-the-art N7 engineering tech, that's why. Seems to be modeled a lot like the advanced suit I used to wear, but damn… it sure packs a punch." Isaac explained.

"I knew it wasn't biotics..." Shepard said to himself.

"That's enough people," Shepard calmed everyone down, satisfied with the applause and compliments he received. His voice was robotically distorted just like the survivors'. He placed his hand to the side of his helmet as everyone started to quiet down. A video feed popped out and hovered right in front of the commander, to his surprise. Joker appeared on screen with his legs on the controls and his hands at the back of his head. The pilot looked bored.

"Joker."

Surprised, Joker turned his head to the right and saw the hovering video feed. "Shepard!" The pilot jumped from his lax position. "Boy am I glad to hear from you… and see you!" He waved his hand jubilantly at Shepard through the video feed. "That's the new suit we delivered, right? I have to say commander, it really suits you."

"Thanks for getting this to me Joker, a few minutes longer and I might have turned to an ice sculpture," said Shepard. "Aw, don't thank me, commander. EDI did all the calculating and trajectory aiming." Joker replied.

"How's Cortez?" Shepard asked, getting straight down to business.

"I don't mean to brag commander, but maybe Cortez could use a bit more time back at flight school. These mines weren't _that _hard to evade."

"The hell you talking about? Cortez's shuttle was attacked badly when he left. I saw a blade stuck in one of his rockets." Shepard raged.

"Blades? What are you guys fighting gladiators there or something?" Joker miffed and crossed his arms. "Whatever. There better be one helluva mission report once we're done here," Joker sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We're parked right next to the Terra Nova, commander. Just recently deployed EDI's body, Liara, and James. They'll take a while. They have to bring the entire shuttle out of there."

"So what about the survivors?" Shepard queried.

"I don't know. Tell them to bunker up at a safe place or something."

"There is no safe place."

"Then bring them on a field trip or something. Show them how the great and powerful commander Shepard works."

"Right."

Shepard disconnected. The commander faced his four onlookers. They saw and heard the entire conversation happen right in front of them.

"You've got to be kidding me…" Carver started.

"Sorry," Shepard replied. "Since you guys are going to be here for a while better make yourselves useful. So, seen any Prothean tech lying around while you guys have been stuck here?"


	8. Chapter 8

The metal gates of the broadcasting tower's garage whooshed open. The light of the nearby star lit up the area well enough to see everything in a crimson tint. In front of them was a lone rover, just as the group discussed there would be. There were tools such as blow torches and hammers lying on the floor in the garage as well as debris and scrap metal.

"Alright, let's hope this piece of crap starts so we can take you to the trench," Isaac said.

The room was rendered dark as the wide steel gate of the garage was shut. Carver was able to land his eyes on the generator of the room in the mild darkness and turn its gears. The room lit up, and the air began to quickly get warm. There was a barely audible sigh that escaped everyone's mouths when the room began to get cozy. Everyone except Tali took off their helmets.

Garrus hasn't shown his marred face to Isaac and Carver yet, and he got a whistle of admiration when Carver pointed at his impressive battle scar when he pulled his helmet off. "I'd ask you where you got that, but I don't even want to talk about mine so just forget about it," said Carver.

The engineer went to the left side of the rover and tore one of its plating off. It clanked loudly on the ground as the engineer revealed various circuitry and machinery inside the vehicle. Isaac casually placed an entire arm in the mechanical mess and began fiddling with the vehicle's wires. His arm moved back and forth, left and right, as he fidgeted and pulled and configured certain wires and gears. In a few moments the rover jostled and its exhaust began belching smoke.

"Got it," Isaac declared as he pulled his arm out of their ride.

Then the engine of the rover ceased bustling.

"Hm, perhaps its gas tank is empty?" Tali wondered as she went up to the driver's window.

She wiped the window a couple of times with her hand to remove some of the dust and peered in. The insides were rustic and grimed, but fortunately the fuel gauge inside was still readable for her radiant, amethyst eyes. The arrow on the fuel gauge pointed to the capital 'E' at the bottom of the meter.

"It's empty," Tali assured the team.

"Any idea where they keep the fuel in this building? There isn't any lying around in this garage that's for sure." Garrus said to the two survivors.

"Carver, any ideas?" questioned Isaac.

"I dunno man. It's a broadcasting tower, not an oil refinery," Carver replied.

The whole garage fell silent.

"What do you think, Shepard?" asked Garrus.

Shepard took a moment to sit down on a military grade crate at the corner of the room before responding. "What about that barrack at the base of the tower?"

"Shepard, I know we're a crazy bunch, but going back in there is just ridiculous…" Garrus chuckled nervously.

"Damn right that's crazy, and what if there's no fuel in there?" Carver butted in.

"_Why_ would there be fuel there?" Tali chimed in. "The emergency supplies," Isaac's voice came from behind Garrus, Tali, and Carver, thus making the three spin on their heels. The engineer had his arms crossed and was leaning on the rover with his shoulder. "Med packs, ammo, and if we're lucky, fuel."

"Correction: I think you mean we'd be considered lucky if we survive twenty seconds in that barrack. This is a bad idea," Garrus argued.

Isaac gave an audible smirk. "Stick around, I'm full of bad ideas."

"It's our only lead. We'll have to work with it," Shepard commented, picking up a telemetry spike launcher on the ground. It was a heavy duty tool with a quiver of metal, half-a-meter long spikes set into it. One of the aforementioned spikes was already in position atop the tool making it look like a deadly, futuristic-medieval crossbow. "This looks… promising. I think we'll do just fine in there," remarked the commander as he was cautious not to pull on the trigger of the device.

"Hang on. I can tweak that a bit for you," Isaac said as he approached the commander and brought the weapon to a workbench inside the room. The engineer unscrewed some bolts and welded foreign pieces together onto the tool and handed it back to the commander.

Shepard took it and his helmet shuffled back into place as he stood up.

The first ever door of the frozen planet that Shepard and his team visited whooshed open once again, not entrancing three people, but five. First came in the commander, keeping his newfound weapon up and ready to fire. The light of the helmet along with the flashlight Isaac welded onto the side of the commander's tool lit up a spot of the room dimly. Next came in Garrus, wielding his assault rifle, Tali with her shotgun, then Carver toting his very own rifle which was different from Garrus' foreign, Turian-based design, then lastly Isaac, armed with nothing but a plasma cutter, he watched their six as the entire group entered the building. Shepard slowly aimed his spot of light around the room.

Something moved.

Shepard held his breath and nearly pulled on his trigger, but then what he saw move wasn't a hostile. It moved again. It was… pulsating. It was the wall, encased in organic muscle fibers and veins.

"What in the…" Shepard trailed off.

"That… doesn't look good," Garrus commented.

"Ugh, it's spreading everywhere, the necromorph growth, I mean," Isaac explained. "Just ignore it and keep looking."

Five flashlights were now on, and the room was fairly illuminated in all directions. The walls and floors were badly encased in the pulsating growth. The five pair of feet entered the building gingerly. Tali's spot of light landed on one of the vents. She gestured for everyone's attention. It looked like it was overflowing with the organic growth.

"Hope every vent's clogged up," whispered Carver, "you guys are pretty tough, and if the attack you guys witnessed had you running for the hills… well shit. I don't think even the two of us will survive."

The five of them split up and spread out the room. All the vents were indeed clogged.

Garrus steadily crept up to the farthest area of the room, his spot of light the steadiest of them all. It slowly crept across the wall until it landed on a rectangular pulsating bulge at the corner. The turian shone the flashlight on the abnormality and scrutinized it. The growth was thin enough to be translucent, and the sharp-eyed sharpshooter was able to make out the SCAF logo on what seems to be a huge rectangular box behind the growth.

"Ladies and gents, I think I've found what we're looking for," his voice as fringy as ever. All eyes were on the turian as he pointed to the item of interest. Isaac saw their target encased in the growth and grunted in annoyance.

"Check under the beds. These soldiers are issued special cans of gas that can burn down these things." Isaac quietly hollered from behind his shoulder as he crouched down to look beneath the first bed he saw. His knee squelched as it supported the engineer's weight on the fleshy floor.

The engineer reached a hand underneath the bed and rummaged around. "Actually they can burn anything organic. Like my face." Carver chuckled from afar. Isaac stood back up with nothing in his hand. "Damn, keep looking you guys. We'll need it to clear out the gunk."

"I'll just stick around here and somebody toss me the can. Walking around on this stuff just isn't right," said Garrus.

"And I'll just… yeah, keep an eye on all of you just in case," Carver added. "Good job guys."

The three remaining active members got to the bunk beds nearest to them and began searching. Tali reluctantly placed a hand beneath the bed she saw. From afar all the beds looked normal, but up close their sheets were long and obscured anyone's view of what it could be hiding beneath it.

"Keelah, is this safe? I still want to keep my arm after all of this…" Tali whined.

"We might not be able to keep our heads if we don't get out of this room fast. Keep looking," said Shepard as he patted beneath his own targeted bed. Suddenly something fit right into the Commander's hand like a thermos.

"Hello, what's this?" the commander chimed.

"Oh praise the spirits!" Tali pulled her hand out from beneath her bed as soon as possible. "Please tell me that's what we're looking for."

"I think it is," Shepard tried to pull on the cylindrical object, but it barely budged. Shepard pulled harder and held tighter, feeling the thermos 'squish' in his hands. "I think it's covered in that organic thing."

"Need some help there Shep?" Garrus asked.

Shepard didn't reply. He just reached in with both of his hands beneath the bed and pulled harder. He felt the can of inflammable gas was slightly loose to the floor, like the only thing keeping it down was really sticky cheese.

The commander's grip slipped and he fell on the palm of his hands. He rolled his shoulders and shook his hands a couple of times before plunging back in yet again. The moment his hands grabbed onto the thermos, there was a hiss of air. Surprised, the commander let go. Then the crackling and stench of sizzling flesh loomed into the commander's senses. Shepard reached below the bed for the last time with just one hand, and pulled out the thermos with ease; the can burnt up most of the skin that kept it grounded, while the rest that remained was stretchy as the commander pulled the can of inflammable gas off the ground.

"Garrus heads up," said Shepard as he tossed the item to his companion, who caught the can of air easily with one claw.

"Eugh," the turian groaned as remaining pieces of skin hung and dripped off the container. "This is the worst thing that's happened in this room, which is fine because I don't want to be losing a limb or something; that could've happened," Garrus chuckled awkwardly, "anyway let's get this over with." The turian gave the can a bit of a shake and sprayed its contents on the large rectangular bulk at the corner of the room for a good twenty seconds. The organic growth that enveloped the crate burned up and eroded away, the only skin left that encased the box was charred black and crispy: easily breakable. Archangel threw the emptied can to the side and unlatched the crate's lid.

"And we have…" Everyone was crossing their fingers. Their eyes can only go as far as the turian's back. Garrus bent over with both of his claws deep in the loot…

"Fuel," the turian heaved two modestly sized fuel containers out of the box. Carver pumped his fist in the air, reflecting everyone's feeling of success. "Tons of ammo, too…" Garrus grinned, "Are you guys going to help me carry these or not?" said the turian as he spun around.

"Nice work team," The commander congratulated everyone, "Isaac, mind helping Vakarian out?" said Shepard to the engineer because he was the closest to Garrus.

Isaac, unbeknownst to anyone, was on guard. He held his plasma cutter up and his stance was rigid and firm.

"Isaac what is-"

"Guys I think it's a trap." Isaac interrupted Tali with a voice raised halfway. He sounded spooked and everyone can just feel Isaac's eyes darting back and forth across the room.

"Eyes on the vents and get to the door," the engineer ordered everyone.

Garrus immediately tossed the fuel containers back into the box and sealed it tight. He pulled out his sniper rifle and firmed his stance. They all trained their guns on all of the vents and backed up to the door they entered from. The commander sighed, "The vents are clogged how can they possibly-"

"Over there!" Garrus barked as the farthest clogged vent which he kept his eye on started to move. A long bladed appendage burst out from the organic material, and was digging its way into the room.

A loud boom erupted in everyone's ears. Garrus had fired a powerful shot straight for the enemy limb. The blade flung off into the darkness of the room. The groan of pain from the invading necromorph was audible enough, but it was also evident it hasn't stopped its assault as another bladed appendage continue to slice through the growth.

At that very moment another vent – a tad closer to the group – exploded open and a colossal, gruesome tentacle burst forth and plunge right for the commander. It was too fast for anyone to have reacted. It grabbed hold of Shepard's feet with its clawed tip and dragged the commander across the floor. Shepard took futile potshots on his assailant as he was skidding around the floor. It was slithering back into the vent.

"Commander!" Isaac yelled. He shot out a ball of stasis which hit the large tentacle… and the commander. The commander was coated in the blue effects of stasis as well, and was in midair with his arms flailing. The retreat of the tentacle was brought down to a snail's pace, but for Shepard he and the tentacle were moving regularly, while everyone else was moving faster.

It was a tentacle familiar to Isaac and Carver. It was a long tendril of muscle and guts coated in slick blood with a yellow infected bulb at its middle.

"Carver!" Isaac hollered to the lieutenant behind his shoulder. Carver gave a curt nod and emptied his clip on the tentacle's glowing yellow bulb. The soldier kept firing at the bulb until the white-hot bullets tore the tentacle in half. The remnants of the tentacle swung erratically and slithered back into the vent. Shepard was about to fall, dangling on a piece of ripped tentacle when his faithful companions Tali and Garrus rushed beneath him to catch their leader. The remaining piece of tentacle fell to the organic floor with a loud wet thud while Shepard fell safely into the hands of his squad mates.

Shepard got on his feet right away. More necromorphs were still afoot. The group heard them. They made loud terrifying high-pitch screeches and squeals. They all spun around and from the darkness of the room they saw the demonic spawns come for them. Behind the room where the farthest vent resided, the necromorphs have begun crawling out in a stream of mutilated gore, filling up the room in a matter of seconds. They were a special sort of necromorph: a nimble, skeletal bunch. They were coated in shiny blood all over and their mouths were literally gaping open from ear to ear with makeshift teeth mutated from their jaw muscles lining them.

They were drawing near quick. Isaac threw another shot of stasis at the horde, slowing down four attackers on the front line to a halt. The rest of the besiegers ran past their blue, frozen companions like it was nothing, and dashed madly for the five as they ran for the door. Isaac spun around a couple of times and slowed down more of their assailants while Garrus dropped more of his proximity mines and Carver bobbed grenades at the menacing group of savages that were still pouring endlessly from the vent as if the five super soldiers have broken open a spider's egg sack. The floor quaked with every mine set off, and the room shook with every grenade that came in contact. Shepard and Tali were racing for the door, hoping it would slide open fast enough for all of them to smoothly exit the room.

Tali reached the door first. Her three-fingered hand slammed on the hologram of the machine. The door whooshed open. The harsh blizzard blew in and was for once comfortable to the five who spent too long in the humid and stuffy room. There was only two feet of distance left before they were mauled and slaughtered to death. Everyone dashed out of the building. The commander stayed near the door and readied his newfound weapon. He threw a ball of stasis at their pursuers and fired his javelin launcher on the doorframe between his friends and his enemies. The long sharp projectile fired silently, and embedded itself deep into the doorframe. With a flick of a switch on Shepard's improvised weapon, the projectile began arching electricity off from its blinking tail, electrocuting the front line attackers who already had their heads popping out of the infrastructure. The stasis wore off just in time for the zombies to jerk and jostle at the high voltage. A loud escalating pitch emanated from the threshold and with a loud boom, the heavy door abruptly fell. It squished the head and limbs of the jittering front liners. And then it began malfunctioning. The door whooshed open and close at a break-neck pace. Some of the fiends thought they can run past the broken device. The door churned them into some form of guttural soup. In a few moments the demonic horde saw that it was futile. Some screeched loudly, disappointed their prey escaped, then they all dispersed as they fled back into the darkness of the room.


	9. Chapter 9

Tali slumped on the outer wall of the facility, letting out an exasperated sigh. She looked at the damage Shepard did to the door and frowned. No way can she fix it.

"We almost had it!" Garrus kicked some snow off the floor. "We don't have the fuel, and we're running dry on ammunition," he added as he checked his waist pack which was previously stocked with unused thermal clips.

"Actually," Isaac got everyone's attention."This won't be much of a problem… I think."

"He's right," Shepard stepped up. "You know Tali, you should know how to solve a problem like this, considering you're an engineer."

"I checked the door, commander. I can't fix i-" Tali begun.

"That's not what I meant." Shepard gave Isaac a glance, and the engineer knew they were on the same page.

With a grin, Isaac spoke, "first, I do this."

Isaac shot stasis on the broken door. Its gears and machines that were bustling can be heard slowing down. Isaac's eyes turned to the commander.

Realizing his cue, the commander followed up. "Then we do this," Shepard reached out for the big trunk perched all the way at the corner of the room. The kinesis worked, and Shepard tried to pull on their hefty loot but it was not budging. Isaac offered assistance and placed his hand out in front of him to aid the commander with the kinesis. With two kinesis modules at work, enveloping the hands of the men in a subtle blue glow, Shepard and Isaac heaved at the titanic chest. The sound of skin ripping apart was a good sign. Garrus, Tali, and Carver watched in awe as the two pulled even harder at their spoils.

"You have to think outside the box, Tali," Shepard said half grunting and half panting, "fixing the door isn't the only way to fix the problem."

In one huge tug from both Isaac and Shepard the big military crate detached itself from the clingy skin and hurtled for the door that was gaping wide open. Despite how open the door was, the huge box crashed into the door frame. It was positioned crosswise so it did not pass through. Before the door had the chance to close small enough to prevent the loot from passing through, Isaac flicked his wrist and easily switched the position of the rectangular crate into the size and shape of the door. It slid out easily without a problem right before the stasis on the door wore off. The door's loud smashing and clanking was not enough to overpower the cheers and applause of the five for the two of their friend's witty solution.

They all hauled the large crate back to the old vehicle facing no resistance at all except for the blizzard. It was a relatively short walk, and now that the terrain was easily visible for a good stone's throw away, they decided it would be easier for no one to stand on guard and instead help carry their spoils. They reached their destination much faster since the load was a fifth as heavy as it should be, to which everyone was pleased.

Shepard pulled the large metal door of the garage open with his kinesis, quickly getting the hang of multitasking with the module while carrying something heavy and bulky. Everyone slowly dropped the crate. It made a very soft thud. Tali unlatched the crate and Garrus took out the fuel containers and began filling up the rusty vehicle. Carver, Isaac and Shepard shuffled their helmets off their faces, seemingly involuntarily, and then they begun to work with the thermal clips and weapon accessories the cache held, checking for scopes they could use and handle supports that are compatible with their guns.

Garrus filled the fuel tank of the ancient rover with plenty to spare. He kept the remaining fuel in the trunk of the car, then proceeded to the weapon mods the group was playing with, eager to give his sniper rifle an edge.

"Let's see what we have here," he chimed.

Tali called out, "Garrus!" She tossed her Katana shotgun – still folded neatly like a metallic square disc – right at the turian, "fix her up for me, will you? I need to fix up _this_ thing first."

Garrus gave a confident thumbs-up and walked towards the burly group of men, as Isaac walked out from it going towards the rover.

Isaac strode on to their one and only way across the frozen dessert. He looked at the rover and the quarian with the omnitool out. The engineer was hoping that this other engineer – one who was born in a race of talented engineers – will prove to be a valuable asset to the obstacles that the ruins underneath the icy crust of the planet hold, if ever there will be obstacles, which will most likely be a yes. Isaac knew too well neither this planet nor his luck will make things easier on them.

"Hey," Isaac greeted her, staring intently at the rover.

"Hi Isaac," Tali gave a respectable nod. "The rover is working well. I'm just checking for any anomalies in the engine so we don't have to deal with anything more than an empty fuel tank. The tires are old but all four of them are pumped proportionately and generously. The plating of the car is made up of a dense metal that works just as well as the standard military issued material in the Alliance…" Tali continued elaborating the vehicle as she pointed to specific parts of it one at a time.

"That's good enough kid no need to stress yourself over it," Isaac gave a light-hearted chuckle. "So, who's going to drive and who's going to watch our six?" He queried as he lightly pounded the vehicle twice with the side of a fist, checking how sturdy the rover is.

Tali leaned in closer and whispered, "between you and me, Shepard is a terrible driver. Me and Garrus will be alright with someone else behind the wheel." Tali turned her gaze towards the commander who was still busy fiddling with his new gun and installing add-ons, then looked back to the human she was talking to, "Garrus is an amazing shot. He can be one of the people to watch our six."

Isaac took a couple of steps away from the vehicle, admiring the old tech, "I wouldn't say Carver has a sharp eye, but he gets the job done. He'll be alongside Garrus during the trip. And of course the commander can-"

"The commander can what?" The commander suddenly popped in between the two engineers, startling them both.

"Oh! Shepard… I mean commander, hi!" Tali stammered.

"How's the rover? I just had a little chat with Joker while you guys were fixing the vehicle up. I gave him an update on our mission and he updated us on how the other team is doing. Things aren't going smoothly up at Terra Nova." Shepard stated grimly.

"What's wrong?" Tali's voice was now more serious and concerned than it was a few seconds ago.

"It turns out there are necromorphs on that ship too," Shepard shook his head in exasperation as he stepped towards the rover. He crossed his arms and leaned his back on the driver's door, "I already told James and the rest to be extra cautious and gave them all the data we know regarding how to beat these hostiles." He paused for a moment, the worry glimmering in his eyes, Ashley's death replaying in his mind, "I hope no one dies on my watch anymore."

Tali and Isaac didn't reply; they didn't know what to say.

Shepard spoke up to break the awkward silence, "Well, get to prepping your firearms. We'll be leaving soon." Shepard spun around, entered the driver's seat, and slammed the door shut before Isaac and Tali could've said anything. The commander's helmet can be seen shuffling onto his face inside the window.

"I call shotgun," Garrus spoke from behind the two engineers. He passed the two of them all of a sudden as well and sat in the passenger's seat before both of them could've said anything … again.

Isaac was startled by a hand on his shoulder. It was Carver, "Get prepping dude. You and Tali here are gonna keep watch with me."

Tali facepalmed the windshield on her helmet and got to prepping with Isaac. Who went along with her, shaking his head.


	10. Chapter 10

The rover swerved left and right on the slippery frozen ground of Tau Volantis. Shepard was in all due respect, a great commander, but his driving skills left something to be desired. Garrus was aware of this and sat in the passenger seat so the jostling of the vehicle wasn't as bad as it could've been. Tali, Isaac, and Carver sitting behind however, were thrown up, occasionally hitting the ceiling of the rover with every bump of the road Shepard ran over. Isaac was feeling nauseous. He's had his fair share of bumpy rides, but that was usually when the necromorphs were attacking and adrenaline coursed through the veins in his system. Right now he just wanted to puke. The rover veered and swerved its way towards the horizon with the big moon sunk into it. Its colors were faded thanks to the distance and mist the planet offered, but the moon along with the small tentacles sprouting up from beneath it grew bigger and regained its color as they got closer; the moon got paler, and its tentacles – no longer as small as the team thought – changed from a light tint of red to a dark crimson. In a matter of minutes Garrus, Tali, and Shepard were peering through the front windshield. Tali scooted closer to the front to get a better view of the moon. They had to throw their heads back up just to view its daunting entirety. Isaac and Carver didn't bother to even glance at it.

"There's a facility just behind the moon," Isaac said in a tone that rivaled the Normandy team's astonishment. "We can get to the bottom of the planet through a super elevator there."

Shepard turned a sharp right, and drove onwards at a ridiculously fast pace. Soon enough the factory showed up. Isaac and Carver got a twisted sense of nostalgia from looking at the tragically majestic vista. Just like the station with the broadcast tower a while ago, the facility was a dirty brown thanks to the rust and grime the infrastructure accumulated in the last two hundred years.

They parked the rover at the nearest building, a small shack that will serve as their landmark when they need a quick getaway. They left the rover with plenty of fuel to spare.

With helmets on and guns ready, they crept across the factory huddled together in a tactical formation: Isaac and Carver were in front since they knew the place well enough to know which way leads to the super elevator; Garrus and Tali on the back to make use of the offensive strengths of the sharpshooting turian and the techy defenses of the quarian; Shepard is at the center of the formation to assess both front and back. Isaac and Carver lead the group into the facility. Small-scaled snow-covered black markers were halfway in the snowy path that led to the building.

"Why are we going inside the huge building? I thought you said the super elevator was inside one of the many smaller buildings that are huddled up somewhere," Shepard asked.

"The necromorphs like to hide under the snow, remember? Better for us to have the tactical advantage of knowing where they'll pop out of than them popping out from beneath us," Isaac answered. The commander nodded his head and the group carried on.

The large door of the building opened and they went inside to see that it's an elevator. Everyone got in and the door closed. It was dim inside with only a few small light bulbs positioned at its corners that gave off red lights to partially illuminate the interior. It was a large, octagonal piece of machinery. A bulky, old-fashioned touch pad cranked and whizzed in front of Isaac and Carver. On it was the familiar blue hologram, this time with the word 'activate' on it. Isaac touched the pad with the index finger of the hand holding his plasma cutter and it turned orange. The word on it was replaced with the phrase 'please wait.' The entire elevator blew steam off from some of its pipes as its gears churned and whirred, slowly pulling the whole group up. The first sight that greeted the group when the doors opened were three dead necromorphs, de-limbed and blackened to a crisp. One was even impaled on the wall with a charred pickaxe.

"It's okay, we killed these fuckers before. Been seeing their bodies every time we pass through here," Carver explained, lessening the tension that came up from Shepard and his squad when they saw the monstrosities. "Isaac had to let loose an entire load of face eating gas over here to take care of some hostiles," he continued. "So yeah, that's why they're all pretty crispy."

There was a long pause. "… Oh_…_" Garrus eventually responded with that signature twanged fringe in his voice. The only response that came from Shepard and his team that showed everyone's acknowledgement of the revelation, as well as their speechlessness.

The grouped moved on and passed a section of the infrastructure labeled 'paleontology.' In this wing were several sliced up prothean specimens that lay on the floor in a puddle.

Isaac curiously looked at the heaping pieces of carcasses on the floor. "Huh, I guess the gas melted the ice. Those things used to be encased in ice guys." Isaac pointed at the ancient alien meat on the floor as if he was giving the squad a tour on a field trip.

They went further into the paleontology wing and eventually out into the open. The group saw more dead protheans, this time really encased in blocks of ice that are piled up on one another on the ground and in the air, hanging precariously on a wooden platform held together by a length of rope that was latched onto a crane hook. Aside from this relatively marvelous sight (Garrus disagreed with the view,) they saw what looked actually vital to their mission: a small yet heavy infrastructure – like a shack but more secure and dense. "This is the first of the small bits of buildings we'll see," Isaac told Shepard and his friends. Cliffs made it difficult to move around it so they passed through the inside.

It was an awfully cramped place. Isaac and Carver moved through this small stuffy space back then and they were already feeling claustrophobic; with five people, they had to form a line to make it through the linear interior of the small building awkwardly squeezed between two small cliffs giving it its straight shape. It was no doubt a shack; the only things in it were lockers aside from the corpses that lay on the floor, which made passing through the small building slightly more irritating than it should be.

They came out to more snow and blocks of ice, and yet another small-looking facility behind all the obstacles in front of them. They walked through two more incredibly small facilities. The last of which was more than just a hefty shack.

The door of the small building whooshed up and everyone walked right into it. What greeted them was a room with a giant hole at the center of the floor behind two control panels: an elevator shaft. The hole was big enough to fit in a couple and a half Makos. A heavy duty elevator for vehicle transportation, Shepard and his friends thought. They were no strangers to what was before them; they have seen dozens of the massive sort of machinery since the Alliance transports hundreds of vehicles larger than life every day at their state-of-the-art bases. The room had a low ceiling like all the other buildings the group recently passed, but it had much more elbow room. Everyone panned out and took comfort in their newfound personal space.

Shepard and Garrus' keen eye found bullet holes in the walls and ceiling and shiny bullet shells on the floor: relatively fresh signs of a gunfight. The two of them thought that Isaac and Carver were responsible for half the mess in the room, and possibly for the mess in the shacks a while ago as well! _Just who are these two,_ the commander and Garrus thought to themselves as they eyed the two survivors, walking nonchalantly for personal space along with them. Garrus shrugged off to another topic, just glad that the two people beside him are allies.

"Well here we finally are," Garrus said, walking away from the group to approach the large hole. The hole was deep, as the turian could only imagine. The hole tunneled down to very deep, subterranean levels. The darkness hid much of the elevator's path. Small bulbs installed on the walls of the tunnel shone a red light, so it wasn't completely dark in a sense. The red lights trailed off deep, with the farthest ones shining like stars in the night sky: far and virtually unreachable.

"Did the elevator have to be on the bottom end?" Garrus sighed as he backed up from the hole.

Tali got to the control panel immediately. It was physically broken, jammed, and dirty according to her diagnostics. Tali brought out her omnitool to fix the problem and in a matter of minutes the control panel became operational.

The heavy elevator can be heard making its way up. It was miles deep into the planet but the noise it made was loud nevertheless. The group above took arms and backed up with each other on the center of the space in front of the control panels; their enemies were getting pretty obvious. Tali came to a sudden realization. She brought up her omnitool and gave the control panel a light tap on top, then went back into her formation.

In a matter of seconds an orange, transparent force field sprung up from the tapped area and enveloped the whole device in a temporary protective shield. The force field had a hexagonal pattern.

Three slashers and a puker clambered out of the hole. Two of the slashers jumped right over the control panel while the other one walked around it with the Puker. Tali, who was the first to spot them because she was tasked to keep an eye on that part of the room, alarmed the others. Her shout of fear infused with adrenaline, the guns that opened fire, and the bloodcurdling psychotic noises of the necromorphs, were only barely audible due to the large elevator coming out from the ground.

Tali was up in front of the group. She fired her shotgun on one of the slashers in front of the force field she generated. She hit the hostile directly in the gut. A gaping hole right through the beast was visible; internal organs painted the force field behind it. The other slasher didn't get too far either; Carver gunned him down ruthlessly with a barrage of firepower. With a shot of stasis, Isaac was able to slow down the puker and the slasher at once, giving the commander time to aim his javelin shot right at the puker's belly. The commander flipped his weapon's secondary switch and the bolt sunk deep into the puker shot out electricity that fried it inside, and made the nearby slasher flinch. Isaac took out his plasma cutter and sliced of the two bladed appendages of the hostile in two quick shots.

All of this was done in a matter of seconds. They all felt themselves getting stronger as a team. Isaac and Carver finally found people who wouldn't die around them, and Shepard has yet again found a couple more brave souls he could possibly take with against the Reapers.

The elevator was still miles away, its loud ascent got fairly quitter. More necromorphs were bound to come after them.

Out of nowhere, a necromorph fell from the ceiling and landed right on Garrus' face. It wasn't a humanoid. The necromorph was round, like a small ball of crimson bloody gore with the skull of a dog protruding out the top. It was no larger than a beach ball. It had three long tentacles that sprouted up from its back that were long enough to slash at Garrus' with their sharp bony tips. His armor sustained the damage, but the turian dropped his sniper rifle from the shock. He was screaming but his voice was inaudible because of the necromorph's firm grip on his face. Garrus pulled at the hostile that obstructed his view with both hands but to no avail. His claws dug deep into the rancid piece of meat that made up the necromorph's body.

All of the commotion on Garrus had everyone's attention. Isaac shot stasis at the sniper and his attacker. The two of them were enveloped in the stasis' bluish effect, allowing Isaac to easily dismember the lurker's tentacles that hung in the air with his plasma cutter. Three consecutive shots were all it took to render the necromorph's grasp loose. In no less than a second the effect of the stasis wore off, and Garrus easily heaved the giant dead piece of decaying muscles off his face.

Garrus roared loud as he threw the necromorph's corpse far, all the way to the other side of the giant hole – which still bore no super elevator.

What the dark hole did bore, however, was a low deep howl.

The bloodcurdling sound sent chills through everyone's spine: Garrus felt his heart sink, Tali begun trembling, Carver froze in place, Shepard's muscles tensed, and Isaac gulped. Another gut-wrenching howl came from beneath, and then another one begun before the first howl subsided. _Two of them..!?_ Everyone thought. The heart-racing noise that came below was followed by squeals and growls, some of them sounded familiar, obviously the lesser necromorphs. It was as if hell itself was rising out from the deep dark hole that the group unearthed.

The commander took a deep breath and exhaled as loud as he can, "Brace yourselves, everyone! Fall into position!" His voice was strong, sincere, reassuring, it's the kind of voice from a man who you'd trust your life with. Shepard's orders resounded in everyone's ears; their heads once again back into the bloody fray of reality.

With the commander in the middle, a firing line was formed by the group. It was a fine example of a band of noble heroes. Despite the quick squabble just half a minute ago, everyone was still in good shape, even Garrus. The back of his armor is scratched and dented considerably, but he still held his assault rifle as high as everyone else. Five sets of eyes were waiting to set their sights on whatever will spawn out of the hole first.

"Damn, I'm going to set the mines!" Garrus said as he rushed towards the rim of the elevator hole.

"Garrus, forget it!" The commander yelled, but the turian ignored him.

He pulled a mine out from a pouch at the back of his hips. He was about to set the mine down on the floor and arm it. Garrus acted proficiently. He laid his mine on the floor as if it was just an ordinary ceramic dish. He pressed a couple of buttons to arm it and – _Fwoosh_

A giant bony arm zipped right out of the hole and uppercut Garrus into the air. He landed with a loud thud and groaned on the floor in front of Carver and Isaac. The menacing arm slowly went back below. The mine was left on the ground intact. Tali saw its light in the center wasn't on, signifying the mine wasn't armed yet. She felt the need to arm the mine and throw it below but the fear of getting smacked right at her chin just like Garrus kept her feet glued to the floor.

Without a moment's hesitation, the arm went back down and heaved the owner of the limb right out of the hole. It was unlike anything the group has seen.

It was gigantic. Standing on four legs, it looked like an elephant with its skin peeled off. The behemoth was twice as tall as them, had hefty girth, and sported a wide skull – which was the only thing that was left of its head. It took a big step towards the group before another one just as colossal and terrifying showed up behind it.

All five of the group armed and readied themselves because the two colossal monstrosities were nearing them, one step at a time.

The one nearest to them stretched its arms out to its side and puffed its chest which was nothing but ribs and internal organs. Its insides churned for a while before its ribs opened up like a cage's doors and shot a projectile near the proximity of Garrus, Isaac and Carver.

Garrus rolled towards Tali's side of the firing line quickly while Isaac and Carver dodged the shot, which nearly hit the soldier's leg. The projectile splashed its orange goop in a small radius. The projectile was a reddish, jelly-like substance. It remained on the floor, still shaky from the impact. Shepard only got to witness the oddity for a moment; the second behemoth charged right at him with its wide plated head.

Shepard received the blow painfully, and was knocked back considerably. Garrus forced himself up and began firing with Tali. The necromorph was now standing on Shepard's place on the firing line. It turned to face the two extraterrestrials with its intimidating size; it was much bigger than it was from a few feet away. They were firing at its long meaty limbs, Garrus aimed at the right arm, and Tali shot at the left.

Isaac and Carver on the other hand were facing the first behemoth. It took a large amount of time for the beast to recuperate from its attack and stand on all fours again because Isaac was quick to hit the beast with yet another shot of stasis. Carver unleashed his barrage on the limbs of the necromorph dealing little damage despite the high-grade quality of his gun and ammunition. Isaac was pitching in on the assault with his measly, but trusty plasma cutter.

_Splack!_

Isaac was thrown off his feet and fell to his left. He was carelessly close to the red projectile launched by their opponent earlier. It burst and small fleshy worms spawned out from it. They wriggled on the floor towards Isaac like huge maggots eagerly on their way to a hearty meal. Isaac quickly tried to stand up and move away from the worms. He fired a couple of shots on the floor, hitting some of the worms in every other shot. He reloaded his plasma cutter and moved backwards away from them…

_Smack!_

Their main opponent, the one that towered above them, hit the engineer powerfully with the back of its hand. Isaac was tossed nearly as far as Shepard and was wounded badly from two of the attacks that caught him off guard. He had completely forgotten about the large lumbering opponent.

Isaac struggled to stand. The world was still spinning around him. Shepard had just recently got up to the engineer. The commander looked like he was hardly rattled by the hit he received. He continued the fight by running towards the alien necromorph that were attacking his squad while shooting at it. Isaac begun to think; his group's situation wasn't looking good. He gave his right shoulder a spin. _It was still hurting…_ The rest will soon receive some bad injuries as well, as it seemed it already started with the commander. Isaac's eyes darted between the two fights happening before him: The trio that were at even odds with their large enemy me, and the lone soldier against the behemoth, as if he was in some twisted reenactment of David and Goliath.

While everyone else was fighting, Isaac saw the elevator finally rising, and it didn't look good. Necromorphs were crawling out of the hole-made-shallow by the rising elevator, and undoubtedly the elevator itself is carrying a vast number of necromorphs. Isaac's heart wouldn't stop racing.

It was then Isaac got struck by an epiphany.

He aimed his hand at the floor between the two lumbering extraterrestrials and yanked Garrus's mine. The armed small explosive zipped dangerously close to Isaac. He made sure that it was indeed armed before doing the unthinkable: He shot the control panel's defenses a few times until it shattered. He was still holding Garrus mine in suspended animation.

"What the hell are you doing Isaac!?" Shepard asked the engineer while he was in between dodging.

"You'll see," Isaac launched the mine directly at the control panel. It exploded into a hundred tiny pieces of burnt circuitry and wires. The elevator this machine held immediately went into free fall, along with the hundreds of necromorphs on it.

Isaac then immediately opened a hatch on his arm and began configuring with the circuitry and wires in the device. He turned a dial straight up to overload and his hand begun to electrify and vibrate powerfully. With the hatch still open, he ran quickly onwards while aiming his charged palm at Shepard and his team.

"Brace yourselves," Isaac warned the three who were in a middle of a battle. He gripped his arm tightly and flicked his wrist.

_Boom. _Shepard and his squad were blown off the ground and into the hole like they were weightless ants.

Isaac's arm was blown aback by the powerful recoil. His scream was ripe with pain but he used the recoil as much as he can as momentum to get into a good position to blow Carver off the floor as soon as possible. Isaac was able to firm his ground in his desired position in just a matter of five short seconds.

The soldier was walking backwards as he continuously assaulted the alien necromorph with heavy fire. He was about to reload when—

_Boom_. The same puffy, loud explosion emanated in the room and sent another person into the dark hole behind everyone.

Isaac agonized in pain. The two powerful blows really crippled his arm. He held tightly onto it as he ran past the two behemoths that were ready to slaughter him with their bony limbs. Through sheer luck, Isaac was able to dodge the two beasts with the minimal movement he's capable off. Then he purposely fell into the darkness he sent his friends spiraling into.


	11. Chapter 11

Isaac's stomach fluttered as he fell into the abyss. He screamed for a moment, but gained his composure immediately. He lined himself straight and plunged down below. _My friends should just be somewhere around here._ Isaac heard someone's screaming as he fell faster down into the darkness. The engineer panned out his body in an attempt to lessen the speed of his free fall through the help of air resistance. He then flipped the switch on his trusty plasma cutter's flashlight with his unwounded arm. He scoured his surroundings and found Carver, falling along with him as the red lights of the elevator's shaft sped upwards the two of them. The soldier was flailing his arms and legs around until he saw the light that came from Isaac's flashlight. He saw the pattern on the man's helmet and recognized him immediately.

"_You son of a bitch!_" Carver spat. "What the hell was that for?" He flailed his arms at Isaac this time. The lieutenant was seething with rage.

"Shut up!" Isaac barked back. He then took Carver by the nape of his armor.

"Flashlight!" Isaac commanded.

"What are yo-"

"Open your damn flashlight!"

The soldier clicked his flashlight on and peered down into the hole the two of them were falling in. Just a few meters away were Shepard's team. Garrus and Shepard were surprised by the light that hit them from above, Tali remained motionless. Beneath the trio was the army of necromorphs that were falling along with the elevator everybody in the squad was waiting for. The sparks of the gears from the heavy machinery was visible even without the aid of the flashlight.

"Go go go!" Isaac pushed Carver down and sped himself towards Shepard's team. They reached the commander who had enough composure to see the duo.

"Somebody better do something quick to save our asses or this is _not_ going to be a pretty landing," The commander was surprisingly calm for someone in the midst of freefalling.

Isaac brought up his broken arm and once again fiddled with the settings of the kinesis/stasis module. The engineer hotwired a red and blue wire he pulled out from the insides, which caused the device on his arm to violently spark blue tiny bolts. He then drove a finger deep inside the mechanism. He wiggled his finger as if he was in search of something.

"Does anyone have a plan?" the commander yelled, a bit more drastic than previously.

"I got it!" Isaac shouted as he pushed his finger submerged in the circuitry and wires of his device. A huge, velvet, ultrasonic explosion erupted forth from Isaac's arm. For a brief moment, their close vicinity lit up enough for them to see their surroundings: The elevator that was falling along with them has just recently hit the ground with astounding force. _Splat! _The impact shattered all the bones of the elevator's passengers and turned them all into one neutralized, collective, pulpy mess. The stunning electronic wave enveloped all five of Shepard and his group, slowing their fall down in the blue suspended animation. The stasis' effect lasted for 5 long minutes. It dissipated just when Garrus' face was inches away from the now gory metallic floor of the elevator.

Everybody fell with a wet splat, landing on the mutilated carcasses of their pursuers. It wasn't an impactful sound. The stasis that slowed everyone's free fall saved their lives and turned their forty-story fall into nothing more than a really bad trip. Everyone got up with a groan and they all wiped the gunk off of their armor. Everyone except for Isaac.

Isaac let out a cry of agony. He wanted to hold onto his broken arm to keep it from moving but he knew that just by touching his injured limb another more devastating shot of pain would shoot right up from it. Instead, Isaac was on an awkward position on the floor, he lay on his uninjured arm with his back arched, his crippled arm was stretched out going away from him in the direction his back is facing. Isaac was too hurt to have realized it, but he's lucky he didn't land on his broken arm, otherwise the pain would have been simply unbearable.

"Oh shit…" Carver muttered as they all hunched over to console their wounded engineer. He was panting, gasping for air.

"We're going to need a _lot_ of medigel to save that arm of his," Garrus muttered. "Do we even have enough?"

Shepard, who was crouched over the closest to Isaac, unlatched his helmet from his face. His eyes were weary and worried. He bit his lip. "Dump all of it."

"All our reserves?" Tali made sure. Shepard shot Tali a sharp, piercing glance. "All of it."

"Y-yes Commander," Tali hesitated, then she took the pack that was strapped to her thigh and began to rummage around for all of the medigel they had. Surprisingly after all that has happened they still had a considerable amount of ammunition with them.

Carver stepped closer to their injured teammate and knelt down along with Shepard and Garrus. With Carver on the right side of Isaac's midsection while Shepard and Garrus was on the left near Isaac's head and feet respectively, they prepared to do a three-man carry. Despite Isaac's pleas that they don't lay a finger on him, the three soldiers did anyway. Isaac screamed, he was close to whimpering; the slightest touch and the smallest movement overworked his nervous system's pain receptors. It was for the best. They wouldn't be able to treat the engineer's broken arm otherwise.

They hustled Isaac's body to a somewhat open area on the elevator, a spot on it that was relatively less riddled with guts and gore. They knelt down and placed Isaac on the floor gently, to the engineer's easiness. He was breathing a bit slowly and easier this time.

Isaac got his helmet to unlatch itself. His face was scrunched up as he took deep and heavy breaths. Isaac squinted, for the first time since the free fall he was actually seeing things. _Is this Hell?_ It was dark all around, his body was aching all over. He was resting on red pulpy, bits of bones and guts. Three large suits of bloody, battered armor loomed over him, two with bright piercing eyes that contrasted with the darkness of the world he seemed to be in. All of them focusing on his face made Isaac squint even harder.

"Tali where's the medigel?" Shepard hollered out to their quarian teammate behind him.

"Here," Tali walked towards everybody, omnitool on the ready. Carver, Garrus, and Shepard moved out of the way so Tali can tend to Isaac's broken arm. At first glance there wasn't much damage to look at, but Tali's omnitool scanned the engineer's arm and saw that his bones were fragmented into dozens of tiny pieces.

"This is going to take a while," Tali muttered as she kept the omnitool over Isaac's arm. The transparent orange gadget that was administering all of the medigel they had did its magic. In just ten minutes – the longest ten minutes in Isaac's life – his bone has already melded together most of its pieces. In twenty, his gangrenous skin has patched up. Isaac had fully awoken halfway the procedure and was simply resting and collecting himself at this time. When the treatment was done he sat up and moved his arm around; (nearly) good as new.

"Well, I think we've spent too much time in this putrid hellhole," Isaac said gravely. "Let's just fix our gears before we head on. Speaking of which…" Isaac tore the broken kinesis and stasis module off of his hand and from his RIG. He tossed them on the ground nonchalantly, "We're going to need someone else to do the technical support from now on."

Carver knew what his engineer friend meant, and he nodded. The soldier doesn't prefer Isaac's unconventional method of using engineering tools to combat necromorphs despite being equipped with a kinesis and stasis module himself, but someone has to do it since slowing down a necromorph is crucial to amputating it without risking much.

Isaac stood up with a groan. He tried to look for his plasma cutter amidst all of the torn boney corpses. Isaac found it resting on top of a bundle of arms and legs. Isaac picked it up and examined it. It's rotator cuff module was malfunctioning and it made a loud hissing sound; its plasma core must be busted too. He brushed it off and they all traveled onwards, into a small metallic subterranean shelter that has the underground city of the Protheans right on the other side.

The group entered the shelter. It was considerably small, especially since there were five of them in it. A bunk bed was positioned at the corner of the room, next to a desk encumbered with notes and x-ray images of what seems to be the prothean's skeletal system; it was definitely not human, nor was it Turian and Quarian. Right next to the door that leads to where the group needs to go sat a few bits of seemingly worthless metal. Isaac drew towards it and scooped it all up.

"Awesome, a rip core and a rotator cuff module, along with some blades." Isaac said as he shuffled to the nearby desk. A pang of pain suddenly struck Isaac's arm and he accidentally dropped the materials on the metallic surface.

"Isaac!" Garrus instinctively stepped towards the engineer, still holding tight onto his arm.

"It's alright, I'm okay," Isaac assured the turian. Garrus acknowledged Isaac and took a seat on the lower bunk bed in the room. They never got a single break in a long while, Garrus realized that when he felt his tense knee joints relax a bit when he sat down. Everyone else took a small break too as they waited for Isaac.

The engineer turned the over encumbered desk into a makeshift work bench with a vise and a tool kit right next to the desk. He examined his worn-out plasma cutter. Its screws were loose, and its rotator cuff was poorly impaired now. He could replace the old rotator cuff with the new one he found, or-

Isaac dismantled the entire plasma cutter. He discarded the burnt out plasma core and the old faulty rotator cuff. He took the shiny newfound rip core, attached it to the plasma cutter's old pistol-sized frame, and installed the new rotator cuff module on it to top it all off. He took one of the three packs of saw blades and loaded his crafted ripper.

"It's not much in long range fighting, but this would be better than the old plasma cutter I've been using," Isaac explained to the group. "So you guys ready? Let's go scour us some prothean tech."


End file.
